China's Ministry of Science and Technology recently revealed the focus of its energy technology development plan for the next five years.
The three critical development projects include a IGCC demonstration project, a 1 megawatt grid-connected photovoltaic power system, and a solar thermal power generation demonstration project. At the end of last year, domestic energy giants Huaneng Group, Datang Group and Shenhua Group funded Greengen Corp. Ltd. to help it focus on the development of clean energy technology including IGCC.
Company officials involved in the project have said that the government supports the project despite IGCC's lack of profitability.
Meng Xiangan, secretary of China Solar Energy Association, said that China's Renewable Energy Law implemented at the beginning of this year attached great importance to power generation application of renewable energy including solar energy.
"The cost of wind power and biomass power generation projects is relatively close to traditional power projects, while the cost of photovoltaic power projects is still around ten times that," he said.
"The government subsidizes renewable energy projects per megawatt of electricity, but that's just to foster a healthy development environment by lowering their costs."
As for the development direction of photovoltaic power projects, Meng said that more grid-connected projects, rather than independent photovoltaic systems, should be built to benefit their profitability.
2006-12-15
